


Too Many Misters (Not Enough Sisters)

by waketosleep



Category: Star Trek (2009)
Genre: Gen, Genderswap, cliche bingo, crackfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-11-15
Updated: 2009-11-15
Packaged: 2017-10-02 23:49:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,931
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11957
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/waketosleep/pseuds/waketosleep
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Women were already an endangered species on the Enterprise, and then Uhura gets traded to the other team.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Too Many Misters (Not Enough Sisters)

**Author's Note:**

> Ridiculous, slightly feminist crack for my 'genderswap' square for cliché bingo. BYOSociological context, because I wasn't trying for the Big Issues here.

Uhura had been excited to join the away team for first contact with Beta Aquilae II; something about the natives using colour changes of their skin to denote case markings or something. Kirk had sort of tuned her out after the first minute or so. He'd been more than willing to let her join the team for a change, rather than go himself and accidentally cause a diplomatic incident (and, okay, this sounded like a boring one), so he'd been relaxing on the bridge, absently going through a stack of department reports, when the away team called the bridge.

"_Enterprise_ here, away team, go ahead," Lt. Stark said, flipping switches on Uhura's console. Stark generally worked Beta shift there but to Kirk, it was always going to be Uhura's station.

"Request permission to beam up, and we will require a medical team to meet us on arrival." The voice on the other end (sounded like Lt. Sharma), had only a slight edge of panic, which Kirk was willing to take as a good sign.

As Stark hailed the transporter room and Sickbay, Kirk jumped to his feet, dumping the rest of the reports in his chair. He gave command to Sulu on his way to the turbolift, since Spock was already in the lift, holding the door for him. They were grim and silent all the way to the transporter room, both trying not to think about what might be beaming back up to them. This had seemed like a pretty easy mission.

The complete lack of bruises and blood on the landing party threw him for a bit of a loop, and McCoy and Chapel, rushing into the room behind him, also pulled up in surprise. He studied the group.

"Where's Uhura?" he said finally. "And who's that guy? You're not in Ops; I know you're not."

Sharma cleared his throat. "That's Lt. Uhura, Captain."

There was a long silence as they all tried to process this. Uhura crossed her--his?--her?--arms over... over a very flat, muscular chest. The first coherent thought to cross Kirk's mind was that he was glad she'd worn the more unisex uniform option down to the planet. The pants and shirt were very tight on him--her--_fuck it, her_, now, but he wasn't sure he would have been able to look at one of the dresses the same way again. Small mercies.

"Bones?" he said weakly.

The doctor swooped in with his tricorder, Chapel following very slowly behind. The rest of the team filed out around Kirk and Spock (who had frozen in place), muttering about sending their report along later. He nodded absently.

"Let's get the Lieutenant to Sickbay," he said when he could trust his voice again.

***

They had to remain in orbit around the planet, re-establishing contact with the natives, who at least were friendly enough. It only took a few hours to figure out the cause of Uhura's problem--something she'd eaten.

"It was a show of trust... thing," she said weakly, trying to defend her actions as McCoy tore her a new one about using good judgement on away missions. "It was just a piece of fruit! They're humanoid and they eat them all the time!"

"You're supposed to be the smart one, Lieutenant," McCoy snapped as he fiddled with his tricorder.

Kirk was a witness to the argument and coughed into his hand to obscure his laughter. McCoy whipped around to glare at him.

"Feeling a little under the weather, Jim? I have something here I can give you for that."

Jim's hand made an aborted move for his own neck before he crossed his arms over his chest. "I'm fine, Bones. Dry air."

McCoy glared for a moment more before turning his attention back to Uhura. "Well, it seems to be an allergic reaction."

"Interesting," said Kirk, speaking as an authority on the subject. "Normally people get hives, not a--"

"_Captain_," Uhura said in a warning voice, which somehow carried exactly the same (high) threat of violence even though it was now much deeper. She looked mortified.

"If it's an allergic reaction, that means I'll turn back?" she asked McCoy.

"Well, it's already defying science as I know it, so I can't make any promises or give you a timeline, but I would expect that to happen, yes." McCoy put down his tricorder. "In the meantime, you're otherwise perfectly healthy and I'm clearing you for duty if the Captain needs you."

Uhura looked up at Kirk, who chewed his lip for a moment. "You're off the roster until tomorrow morning, anyway, so take the rest of the day and get some rest, Lieutenant," he declared. "I have to get back to the bridge, before Sulu goes power-mad and mutinies to become a space pirate."

"We wouldn't want him to beat you to that one," McCoy said absently. Kirk flipped him the bird on his way out of Sickbay.

"You're free to go, Uhura," McCoy said. "I can't believe this is coming out of my mouth, but take the Captain's advice. Get some rest. This is a waiting game." He walked away.

On her way out, Uhura ran into Chapel in the middle of her rounds. The brokenhearted, pitying look on the other woman's face was almost too much to bear. Uhura broke away without a word and made for her quarters as fast as she could go without actually running.

***

Finding a uniform that fit better was the least of Uhura's problems over the next several days. She thought that doing her regular duties was helping to keep her mind off of it, except that the differences between her old body and her new one seemed to cause difficulties with absolutely everything she did. Everything felt slightly off, like she got up on the wrong side of the bed every single day now.

She mostly pretended that she didn't constantly feel wrong, fending off concerned crew with declarations that she was fine, really, and that it wasn't bad, as catastrophic allergic reactions went, and at least it was probably reversible. Then, on the fourth evening of her ordeal, McCoy invited himself into her cabin with a bottle of good bourbon and two glasses.

She blew him off too, at first, when he acted concerned (as her doctor or her friend, she wasn't sure), so they sat and drank in a relatively peaceful silence. After three large, neat bourbons though, she found herself unloading on him.

"My head," she said, "feels like it might float away."

"What?" He raised an eyebrow at her.

"My hair." She put her large, wide hand to her head, smoothing it over the close-cropped curls there. "It's gone. It was heavy, I guess, but you get used to it after a while. And it's all gone." She tipped her head back and shook it. "I miss the way it would tickle my neck and the feel of it on my back."

"Yeah?" McCoy said.

"I miss my skirts, too. I love skirts." She laughed. "And you know what's funny? I always run back to my quarters when I need to use the bathroom, now."

"Why's that?" he drawled, watching her over the rim of his glass.

She took another long, languid sip of her drink, feeling it make a warm path down her throat. "I can't use the public bathrooms because I don't know which one to go into."

"I think the crew understands your problem," he said. "It's not that big of a deal."

"No," she said, "it is. I mean, I've lived a strange life. Lots of unknown quantities, right? Especially since Starfleet. But I always knew which fucking bathroom to go into."

He was silent.

"I had to modify my own duties too, pass off some stuff to Stark and that ensign on Gamma. You know why?"

"No," he said.

"I have a new mouth, and I can't speak half the Federation languages I know properly anymore, because I can't make some of the sounds right. I can't do any trills. You know how many trills there are in Andorian?"

"Lots?"

He probably didn't know what a trill was, but she said, "Exactly. My Spanish sounds terrible now, too."

"Any upsides?"

She thought. "I can drink a lot more," she mused. "And there's something to be said for the ability to pee while standing up."

"Men everywhere are glad for these two things," McCoy agreed. He drained the rest of his glass and set it down, studying her quietly. She studied him right back.

"Feeling better?" he asked.

"Yeah. Thanks."

"Don't mention it. Keep the bottle, in case you want to do more research on drinking and pissing." He got up and sauntered to the door in his casual way. "'Night," he said over his shoulder, his accent coming through slightly to her trained ear.

She poured herself one more for a nightcap.

***

Nine days after Uhura had been turned into a man, they were on their way to their next mission in the Laurentian system and she was at her station, going through some routine communication logs. She was in the middle of auto-transcribing some of the last month's subspace communications when her nose started to itch. The sneeze that followed was embarrassingly loud in the busy hush of the bridge, and when she reached under her console for a tissue, she did a double-take at the sight of her arm.

A discreet glance down at her chest confirmed it. She was female again.

"Oh, thank fuck," she said out loud, sagging in her chair.

Swearing always attracted the captain's attention and his chair whipped around. "Uhura!" he said. "You're back!"

Then he asked if he could reintroduce himself to her breasts, since it had been so long. She tried to give him a dirty look for being a pig but the relief was too strong, so she just laughed instead.

"No. Permission to go to Sickbay to make sure I'm totally back to normal, sir?"

"Granted," he said, waving her away.

In the privacy of the turbolift, she couldn't help trying to do an alveolar trill as her own check-up, and was quietly ecstatic that her language abilities were back. She walked into Sickbay with a big smile on her face and McCoy's check-up was quick.

"Everything's good," he said. "You're back to your factory settings."

She stretched out a leg and looked down at her now-baggy uniform pants. "I think I might go put my skirt back on," she said happily.

McCoy chuckled and walked away.

Chapel appeared beside the biobed almost immediately and let out a squeal which she muffled with her hand before throwing her arms around Uhura. "You're a girl again! Rand and I were about to go into mourning for your missing vagina."

Uhura threw back her head and laughed.

"Shut up," Chapel said, "this is serious. The women of the _Enterprise_ need to stick together in the face of all that testosterone and the bad decisions it influences." She grinned, and Uhura grinned back.

"You're eating dinner with Rand and me tonight, and then we're going to track down all the off-shift girls in Operations and Science and have a big, stupid movie night and do each other's nails. We have to welcome you back into the fold."

"Jesus, Chapel, I wasn't even 'gone' that long."

"It felt like years. Think of it as a celebration of your triumphant return to normal. Normalcy is always worth celebrating on this ship."

"In that case," Uhura said, "I can't wait."

THE END


End file.
